Reflection Of Winter Road Salinity In P-THEM Data

During the development of the P-THEM system, the author and his colleagues have made numerous test surveys on different sites in Quebec and Ontario. One of the test sites, the Alliston area, has been selected for the P-THEM system tests in June 2010. The area is a developed urban zone in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada. Geologically, the area is represented with Quaternary sediments with underlying bedrocks of the Ordovician formation. The close distance of the area to Holland Landings airport made it preferable for testing system functionality. After processing observation data, the salty soil along roads where the salt is spread during winter time has been detected on the Tau-map. Another test flight in January 2013 showed an identical image. The achieved results of the surveys show the possibility of the time-domain electromagnetic (TDEM) airborne system for applications in the characterization of environmental properties, such as the detection of surface and near surface pollution.